[Spoiler] Master Auro Has A Living Army

[Aurorarcher]

Update for T117.

Situation when I opened the turn:



Dave played just like I hoped and the RNG favoured me as well. He stayed around and attacked those wolves as well (that's good, my upkeep was killing me!). But the main thing is that his units got hurt quite a lot considering those combats must've been like 95%+ odds.

But I had my fort plan, here's the situation before I did any attacks:



4 galleys, this is promising.

First combat, this was the worst odds fight IIRC.



Last one, finally able to kill some Cultists!



And whole combat log:



There's one lonely Cultist left at 2.3 str, it'll probably Tsunami the area, hopefully my fort doesn't get wiped off! But the cultist is dead unless Dave has ships in range. But even then I might be able to kill a lot. I have one galley now that can promote to C4! That can kill anything Dave will bring around right now.

[shallow_thought]

Good luck! Not that I have anything against Dave, but he's ahead right now, so I'm going to cheer for the underdog (underwolf?).

[haphazard1]

Thanks for the update! Lots of action going on, us lurkers are very entertained.

[Aurorarcher]

Thanks guys.

Yeah...



I played so stupid! I forgot that of course Dave would fire his WS now and kill everything! Argggh, he also razed one of Cairo's super cities... I knew that would happen at some point, all his cities are coastal so...

If Cairo/superjm want to call it I'm going to wave the white flag as well. Some pics.

Desperate attack that worked (my only galley alive, raging seas killed all my other 4 galleys...). Hoping to kill some units inside (I think 2 warriors).





I got GS at the end of turn. I could bulb Alternation for Enchantment mana or use GA. Blight is going to hit next turn... perfect time for GA, ha ha ha. It's the end anyway. Well played, Dave.

[Aurorarcher]

T119.

Hamilton is toast soon. I have a plan to buy some time though:



Next turn I will road that cottage tile when the marked stack is standing. It was a village but I pillaged my *own* to get 56g to get Military Strategy this turn. I'll have two galleys in that part of water next turn so beware Dave!

Can any lurker call the game if other players feel the same? I can't really tell but I don't think there's much reason to continue. When the game is really done I'll give more detailed comments but not banning Cultists in this game was a pretty huge mistake. Probably even not banning Lanun. Shame because I think this could've been much more interesting game that way. But kudos to Dave for exploiting all the possible stuff on this heavy on water map.

[Aurorarcher]

Okay, if Cairo/superjm want to fight till the end then so be it. Let's see how long we'll last.

T120 I found I killed a Giant Spider. Odd, I had city here 2 turns ago, did spider just roam here? I thought they didn't move much. Well, I got very lucky in any case. Superjm is down to 2 cities. His capital is non-coastal thank god but the 2nd city is not...



I decided to fire GA, here's how it affected my treasury. I also switched to MS which saved a lot in unit cost but civic upkeep is higher.

Before:



After:



Dave had left galley vulnerable (not sure why). I know the galley is empty or at least no Cultists because there were no Tsunami here. Did he not see my galley? I decided to gamble, if I win I gain 7 xp to triple promote. If I lose, well, it's not a biggie in a big picture. However, if I win then I could also kill the Pirate.



I won. I have one other galley coming from the east and I can kill the Drown next turn if it doesn't move (it probably will).

I have my super fast wolf checking how Cairo is doing. He has a lot of units in his cities. Unfortunately, he seems to not get that you need galleys/triremes to have a chance? That's the only way he can survive when his cities are all on coast. If he just keeps stacking units it won't last. Does he not know the +50% bonus against Cultists? He needs forts too.



Avelorn is not threated by that much (only 1 Drown). He should build galleys here esepcially, he doesn't need forts here. Those Giants still have hidden nationality, so if he doesn't remove them I can't scout the area any further. I could help in this area by moving ships from my northern empire. I don't think Dave has any coastal cities here, and maybe won't. But if he does or forts his galleys to this sea I need to know it ahead or I am in big trouble.



In the south this city is going down. Dave used Tsuanmi and killed 3 units or so from the city. Now that I think of it I don't know why I settled here, should've done 1W. I had higher hopes at that point that I maybe could surprise Dave from here at some point... 



I left the city empty and hid my galley south, hopefully to make him guessing if I have hidden some units from the fog to it. Or lure him to follow it. I actually only put that worker aboard.

It's quite funny in the GA my production is pretty close to Dave's (forgot to take a pic but IIRC only 30 hammers behind in demos), though he is obviously more focus on food (especially now with Conquest).

[Aurorarcher]

Forgot to update T121. So here's turns 121 & 122.

Cairo followed my advice. Trireme works as well, even better. Unfortunately he lost the attack against Drown on T122...



Dave had to run, next turn that bear killed the Drown!



No ships in Kwythellar yet... come on Cairo. They'll kill you slowly if you don't build ships. Though, I get where you are going with Diseased Corpses; but those priest can just heal themselves...



Tense situation on T121 near Riemann... next turn Dave moved on.



I had thought I could survive 2 tsunamis better. I noticed a while ago that Winterborn promotion gives +20% resistant to Cold damage = tsunami spell for example. Sadly I didn't scorch the tile last turn! Dang dang! It would've made things a lot better... I will do that later to prevent attacks from that diagonal.




Bye Lucian as well .

I had bunch of units around and I decided to do all I can to kill as many as possible. If I let those stay they will just eat everything, and Dave probably has more units coming (2 galleys are seen on left in the pic, the other one pointing away is the one that was next to Riemann on T121). So I got very lucky... I mean, just look at the xp I have on my units! Happy with the results, managed to kill both Cultists as well.



If he doesn't have reinforcements coming then he'll probably try to save his units, I am sure he'll pillage the fort to prevent my 3 galleys moving from NE of Riemann. I have some ships that can come through that Cow tile though if he leaves some ships too close. We'll see what happens.

In the south Dave is moving closer. But this part of the map I have well planned. Leibniz and Cauchy are both on hill and not on coast. That makes defending a lot easier. Notice that I am in war with superjm. I had to do that to cancel my Copper trade for him, I used to have 2 coppers but Dave razed my 2nd copper city. So I had to declare war on superjm to cancel the deal because it was made only like 5 turns ago (and you need 10 turns to cancel the deal). So sorry superjm, when you read it afterwards, that's why I did it. Superjm is down to 1 city, won't last long with 30k power and some power is from techs... I think he has max 2 units left.



That 3-moves could be a pain. Notice also Dave has IW, that's going to give him great odds everywhere on flatland. He also can now build Shipyards (+25% naval units production and +4 xp for naval units + 1h for every frigging water tile on the city). Now that's a tech Dave can really use, it's so useful. He can now build Frigates so my oh so nice attempt to counter with galleys is soon going to be just useless. I think Dave should just concentrate to one front, now it seems like he wants to attack from 2 or 3 directions. My empire is so spread out that I can't move units fast enough from south to north. I have also 3 galleys in this area and 7 workers, I have a fort plan, we'll see if it'll ever be used or not.

Former superjm land, I am pillaging with my galleys. I am sending one warrior with mobility promotion to pillage those towns/villages. I need that cash!



In west the blockade is over but there are 2 Pirates on ocean tiles (I can't move there). Not that I would anyway... it's looking like no attacks are coming from here.



My north. This area is very poorly defended, if Dave takes the barb city I want to know about that asap.



East. Pythagoras with 10 units is safe but I might need to use those promotions soon enough when he keeps bringing more units here. I am so happy now that I planned ahead and didn't plant this city on coast!



My units:



Demos.



I hope that I can squeeze Necromancy next turn by moving slider down (according to quick calculation it'll be very close), then I can start to improve one mana to Entropy on T124 quickly, and another one to Death. But Entropy will be great against Bronze/Iron Weapons.

[Aurorarcher]

T124.

Dave doesn't give up on Riemann. It's not the most useful city to me especially as it has starved a lot... If the city falls I will lose dyes though.



I scorched that tile 1SW of Riemann. So at least those units under Pirate can't attack next turn. Not sure if Dave saw this coming? I could've attacked the Pirate from "4t fort" tile (if I had build the fort of course) but I decided not to. It's not going to do much as I can't kill any real attackers. I had 68% chance to kill it with my C3 galley. Also, I don't think I understand fully how vision works, especially with ships. Optics tech says:



+1 sight across water. I guess that means +1 visibility on sea, but actually I think it works like you'd gain +1 visibility. See my tests in wb:

Galleys, no Optics:



Nothing too unusual here, just like you'd expect +1 vision works. But here's the same with Optics researched:



Notice how far you get vision, not only in the sea but on the land! You can see that another wb behind land and even behind it. And you get vision of two tiles to the land as well. I never understood it this way but it's pretty +1 vision instead of +1 sight across sea. Maybe I understand the wording incorrectly?

I don't know if those galleys are empty or not so I left Riemann only almost full with useless human... err wolf shields.



That warrior is from earlier lucky combats against Dave last time he attacked Riemann. I decided to play around with promotions and magic resistance promotions especially, the Warrior has promotions such that it has +90% resistance against Cold Damage (which Tsunami is). Let's see how it works, just for fun. The pic is from end of turn. I got Construction to be able to move faster over rivers.

How did I get Construction this fast? Here's how:



I should've used this more. Being RAI is useful with +100% pillage gold.

Kwythellar got razed. And now the stack is moving towards Caledor. Thales can produce 2 Beastman before it gets eaten. Suprisingly superjm is still alive, maybe Dave doesn't want to lose anything. I wonder why, because he has almost million power and he has WW over 250 with superjm. Surely losing that WW could remove some unhappy faces?



Cairo moved Giants out of the city, well... you could just remove that Hidden Nationality...



Demos T124.



39k power for superjm, maybe a Drown and 2 warriors?

Btw, I'd play a new game after this for sure. Not sure about Dave/Cairo/superjm. Any lurker feel like they could play a game of EitB?

[Aurorarcher]

Riemann is falling next turn. I'll evacuate Ceva as well.



When I moved some (5) units out of Pythagoras last turn Dave moved in. Like I predicted he brings Chariots and also Cats. He'll need those but those Chariots as scary too, they attack at 8.4 str while my best unit gets 8.25 (son: 5*(1+0,2+0,25+0,2) = 8.25 and warriors get 4*(1+0,2+0,25+0,25+0,2) =  7.6.



But I have first stirkes which matter a lot considering the odds (if my combat calc works properly). This is for civ4 and I think it doesn't calculate everything correctly, but if I put all multiplier to combat it shows right strength at least.

Here's his Chariot vs my warrior (without first strike)



And here's with one first strike, the odds are a lot better.



My best son has these odds to win against Chariot.



Of course once he brings to cats next to city the odds will get lower. But it'll take him couple turns before he reaches the city, I'd assume he'll stay on hill so that I don't attack the stack, I wouldn't otherwise either. But I have a lot more units able to bring to the city + I am getting my Entropy mana improved next turn. I'll hit Rust to that stack on T126 and also T127, if those Chariots will lose their Iron/Bronze weapons the city won't fall.

This pic shows almost all my/Dave units around. The stack near Pythagoras is not shown here. I pillaged more towns/villages from superjm land and I got 145 gold! I decided to 1-turn Archery, those Javelin throwers get to play, I don't need Archery Ranges, I have couple hill cities where they get very nice bonuses. I actually think I could hold my non-coastal cities for a pretty good while. Of course I'll definitely concede to Dave right away once Cairo is dead (if he's willing to concede earlier I am too).



Sorry for a messy picture.  

Northern sea patrol:



Dave might bring galleys via forts to here and I must know that quickly. I haven't seen any Cultists close to Cairo's capital (use to be his 2nd city) so far.

[Aurorarcher]

Rust worked pretty well. Unfortunately all of the Chariots resisted the spell.

Would you attack as Dave? I probably wouldn't. Maybe he'll throw in the cats to see if the odds get better, certainly those Drowns won't get very good odds now. Removing 2 str is quite significant. If he does attack I should be able to cleanup afterwards but then my west will be very vulnerable. We shall see...



I need more rust adepts to deal with his Drown/Cultist stack in the west too.

Also forgot to offer Cairo trade for some happiness. His capital has now lots of ships which is nice.

I wouldn't be too surprised to see Galleys coming out of here shortly.